I am running my first campaign and i like to homebrew alot, and i mean alot. I have had this idea of instead of giving the party gold or items as they clear dungeons or do missions, i make them persuade special recognizable items that they can use to unlock rooms in a multi dimensional artificers castle thingy.
I feel like it will make the campaign into two different adventures and dont know if that is a good thing bad thing or meh thing.
Btw i know this sounds alot like the happy fun ball, I had this vague idea and the happy fun ball is what made me go along with it and advance it.
Honesty? If this is your first session try to homebrew as little as possible, besides for having so many things to remember stat, feature & rule-wise, (you're not just learning 1 character & what they do, you're learning every npc & monster. & I recommend quickly going over your own player's characters) but you also need to memorize the details & nuances of the adventure itself, not to mention keeping track of EVERYTHIHG, from sidequests to NPC statuses, etc. Dont give yourself more to kill yourself with, not on your first try at least
Start an official adventure, if you're too itchy start a short 1-3 level one. Or do one and a few sessions in add your own homebrew additions to it.
Lost mines of Phendelver is popular for a reason. The new essentials kit one is good too.
It is not my first session, we have already done a few of them and i seem to be holding pretty well considering none of the other players have any experience at all and make it confusing.
As a concept do having a mini adventure inside the adventure sound like something interesting and rewarding or does it just sound like more work for the dm and players without any added fun?
As I've told other starting DM's... Keep it simple. Too many..want too much and too fast. Creating stuff they think is cool, but in reality is just shit and ******* annoying/frustrating. It is the same with game design in general. gamers often think they know what would make the best/most awesome game. but in reality such a game would be horrible. Or in powerlifting that a beginner thinks they know their body best. assuming they can make better work-out regimes. Its all just misguided ego. Make sure to get the basics right and in a few months gradually start adding small tidbits of homebrew.
All those ideas you currently get. Just write them down, maybe flesh them out a little. Store them somewhere. Come back to them in a few months and you'll see what i mean. But they won't be a complete waste. With more experience you can properly tweak and make those ideas actually usable then.
The only people who can - or have any right to - judge the quality of your content are your Players.
To quote Matt Colville*: When you start off, you'll be terrible .. but your Players will be new, and they won't know you're terrible ... If you play with your friends, and none of your have ever played before, they will think you are amazing ... and eventually you will be a great DM ... but it will be fun when you terrible at it, and it will be fun when you're great at it. And I would extend that to many experienced Players as well. Many Players are just happy that someone is running the game ( within reason, of course - there are really bad GMs who never ever try and get better, and there are toxic ******** running games as well ), and so long as you're managing a reasonable quality experience, and you're showing improvement, most Players will cut you some slack.
And if they don't - then they can run the damn game.
The only person who can tell if you're getting overloaded by details is yourself.
Don't let anyone not at your table tell you what you should be doing. You don't learn if you don't experiment.
Getting overloaded, and having things get so complicated that you're losing track of details yourself are absolutely dangers to keep in mind and guard against - but the only person who can judge if that's happening is you. Don't let other people try and impose the path, or pace, that worked best for them, on you. Find your own path, try things out, accept that you'll fail a lot, fail, learn, keep going.
Also - don't be stubborn and pig-headed about it. If you are getting overloaded, or things aren't working well, acknowledge that and either learn to deal with that, or simplify things back down to basics.
It's a pretty common opinion that you should run RAW, and published adventures until you get some experience under your belt - and that's a completely valid approach, and a decent way to learn - but it is by no means the only way to play, and it's not the only way to learn to DM.
As for your question: it is perfectly fine to have multiple interconnected ( or even independant ) adventure threads going on at once. You see that in movies and literature all the time. So long as you're not getting overloaded with the details, run with it. If you are finding yourself overloaded, then scale it back, or find ways to manage the load.
* Matt Colville's videos are a great resource for new DMs. And for the record, he jumps straight into homebrew after dismissing "The Lost Mines of Flapdoodle ... or whatever ... "
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I am running my first campaign and i like to homebrew alot, and i mean alot. I have had this idea of instead of giving the party gold or items as they clear dungeons or do missions, i make them persuade special recognizable items that they can use to unlock rooms in a multi dimensional artificers castle thingy.
I feel like it will make the campaign into two different adventures and dont know if that is a good thing bad thing or meh thing.
Btw i know this sounds alot like the happy fun ball, I had this vague idea and the happy fun ball is what made me go along with it and advance it.
Honesty? If this is your first session try to homebrew as little as possible, besides for having so many things to remember stat, feature & rule-wise, (you're not just learning 1 character & what they do, you're learning every npc & monster. & I recommend quickly going over your own player's characters) but you also need to memorize the details & nuances of the adventure itself, not to mention keeping track of EVERYTHIHG, from sidequests to NPC statuses, etc. Dont give yourself more to kill yourself with, not on your first try at least
Start an official adventure, if you're too itchy start a short 1-3 level one. Or do one and a few sessions in add your own homebrew additions to it.
Lost mines of Phendelver is popular for a reason. The new essentials kit one is good too.
It is not my first session, we have already done a few of them and i seem to be holding pretty well considering none of the other players have any experience at all and make it confusing.
As a concept do having a mini adventure inside the adventure sound like something interesting and rewarding or does it just sound like more work for the dm and players without any added fun?
As I've told other starting DM's... Keep it simple. Too many..want too much and too fast. Creating stuff they think is cool, but in reality is just shit and ******* annoying/frustrating.
It is the same with game design in general. gamers often think they know what would make the best/most awesome game. but in reality such a game would be horrible. Or in powerlifting that a beginner thinks they know their body best. assuming they can make better work-out regimes. Its all just misguided ego.
Make sure to get the basics right and in a few months gradually start adding small tidbits of homebrew.
All those ideas you currently get. Just write them down, maybe flesh them out a little. Store them somewhere. Come back to them in a few months and you'll see what i mean. But they won't be a complete waste. With more experience you can properly tweak and make those ideas actually usable then.
The only people who can - or have any right to - judge the quality of your content are your Players.
To quote Matt Colville*: When you start off, you'll be terrible .. but your Players will be new, and they won't know you're terrible ... If you play with your friends, and none of your have ever played before, they will think you are amazing ... and eventually you will be a great DM ... but it will be fun when you terrible at it, and it will be fun when you're great at it. And I would extend that to many experienced Players as well. Many Players are just happy that someone is running the game ( within reason, of course - there are really bad GMs who never ever try and get better, and there are toxic ******** running games as well ), and so long as you're managing a reasonable quality experience, and you're showing improvement, most Players will cut you some slack.
And if they don't - then they can run the damn game.
The only person who can tell if you're getting overloaded by details is yourself.
Don't let anyone not at your table tell you what you should be doing. You don't learn if you don't experiment.
Getting overloaded, and having things get so complicated that you're losing track of details yourself are absolutely dangers to keep in mind and guard against - but the only person who can judge if that's happening is you. Don't let other people try and impose the path, or pace, that worked best for them, on you. Find your own path, try things out, accept that you'll fail a lot, fail, learn, keep going.
Also - don't be stubborn and pig-headed about it. If you are getting overloaded, or things aren't working well, acknowledge that and either learn to deal with that, or simplify things back down to basics.
It's a pretty common opinion that you should run RAW, and published adventures until you get some experience under your belt - and that's a completely valid approach, and a decent way to learn - but it is by no means the only way to play, and it's not the only way to learn to DM.
As for your question: it is perfectly fine to have multiple interconnected ( or even independant ) adventure threads going on at once. You see that in movies and literature all the time. So long as you're not getting overloaded with the details, run with it. If you are finding yourself overloaded, then scale it back, or find ways to manage the load.
* Matt Colville's videos are a great resource for new DMs. And for the record, he jumps straight into homebrew after dismissing "The Lost Mines of Flapdoodle ... or whatever ... "
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thank you Vedexent I really appreciate the advice given and the time and effort put into it.
keep doing what you are doing, you will find your groove